Political power is generated at a base rate of +2 per day on the normal difficulty.[1] On easy difficulty, political power is generated at a base rate of +2.5 per day, while on the veteran difficulty political power is generated at a base rate of +1.75 per day.

National focuses are a replacement for the decisions in Hearts of Iron III.(what about actual decisions now though?) One national focus can be active at any given time, and each takes a certain number of days, usually 70 days. When completed, they provide benefits or initiate events. Major nations (and DLC expanded countries) have their own unique focus tree, while other countries share a generic one.

Political power is spent to manage the government via ideas. These take the form of laws, ministers, and companies. Enacting or removing an idea costs political power. Some ideas may also have an upkeep cost, but this does not seem to have been implemented yet.

Political power may be used to produce new commanders for use in commanding divisions. The cost scales with the amount of commanders the player already has, starting at a cost of 5 and increasing by 5 for each additional commander. Naval commanders are bought with the same system, and at the same rate as the field commanders.

Political Power is needed for several diplomatic interactions, including justifying war, guaranteeing independence, improving relations, boosting (foreign) party popularity and staging (foreign) coups.

Justifying for a province using the Conquest casus belli costs 50 political power, increasing by 5 if justifying on a country with the Neutral Foreign Policy national spirit. Each state added to the Conquest justification increases the cost by 10 political power. Justifying using the Retake core state casus belli costs 25 political power.

A guarantee of independence costs 25 political power and increases by that much for each subsequent guarantee (first justification is 25 political power, second justification is 50 political power, etc.).

Improving relations is initiated at the cost of 10 political power, and costs a base rate of .2 political power per day for a country with a matching ideology. If the improving relations action is taken with the target being a separate ideology, the cost per day is 0.4 political power. For example, if Germany was improving relations with fascist Italy it would cost .2 political power per day, but improving relations with the democratic United Kingdom would cost .4 political power per day.

Boosting ideology costs a base rate of .25 political power per day, and increases support for target ideology at a rate of 0.05% per day.

Staging a coup will cost 0.5 political power per day until an amount of 200 political power is reached.

Decisions act as a middle ground between national focuses and events. They can cost anything from 25 to 200 political power (except for a few decisions which require no cost at all). The outcomes vary between instantaneous or timed effects.

The decisions tab is accessible by clicking the gavel icon in the top bar.

Elections happen every 4 years in Democracies. The player can see when the next election will be under the politics tab. Elections enable the player to change power to other ideologies without violence. Prerequisite for that is, that the corresponding party has more than 50% popularity. Elections can also trigger some other Election events.

Each Nation has a leader, this leader depends on which party is in power and the leader of said party. Most leaders are only flavor and have no effect on the game while some leaders have AI modifiers and/or certain bonuses and/or maluses.

The below table leaders for some of the major nations in the game. For more details check the main link.

France

Leader

Ideology

Party

In Power (1936)

Popularity

Unique Portrait?

Leader Trait

Édouard Daladier

Democracy/Socialism

Parti Radical

Yes

69%

Yes

Stout Defender: AI Modifier: focus on defense +50%

Paul Reynaud

Democracy/Socialism

Parti Radical

No, can come to power via event (Édouard Daladier Resigns)

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Yes

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Charles de Gaulle

Democracy/Conservatism

Parti Radical

No, can come to power via event (French Armistice after German victory)